Ryan Hunter-Reay

The versatile chameleon on finding the sweet spot in a variety of race cars.

"Don't quit your day job." That is a phrase commonly heard by young drivers trying to make a living racing cars. There are precious few of us fortunate enough to call ourselves a "professional race car driver." It is a bit of a cliché, but we live the dream. It is also a lot of hard work. With the testing and travel there isn't much time for family or friends, and it's a hard deal. You need a lot of people around to make that dream happen. Thankfully, I have a strong support system around me, no matter what track I'm at or what series I'm racing in.

The past few months have been good for my frequent flyer accounts, and it is only going to get busier. The 2010 racing season kicked off for me with the Daytona 24 Hour Race and a podium finish in 3rd. Even before that, though, I had testing duties at Daytona and Sebring, along with IndyCar spring training at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. Then, beginning the first weekend in March, I started a six-race stretch over seven weekends with races in the Izod IndyCar Series, American Le Mans Series and Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series.

I started March in south Florida, driving Level 5 Motorsports' Daytona Prototype at Homestead-Miami Speedway. Two days later I was on a plane to Brazil to drive for Andretti Autosport in the IndyCar season opener, the São Paulo Indy 300, where I qualified 4th and finished 2nd. That night I was flying back to Florida to race in the ALMS 12 Hours of Sebring for Level 5 in one of the new ORECA Le Mans Prototype Challenge (LMPC) cars. The following weekend I'm back in the Indy car to race in the streets of St. Petersburg, Florida. In fact, by the time you read this, I will be in Indiana preparing for the 94th running of the Indianapolis 500.

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Racing three cars in three series, the question often comes up about how I am able to quickly adapt to completely different cars in such a short period of time. While a Dallara-, a -Riley and an ORECA look very different from one another, compared to the stock cars I drove during my days in Hendrick Motorsports' driver development program, an open-wheel car and two prototypes aren't all that dissimilar. All three are powered by mid-mounted V-8s backed by sequential gearboxes. While they each have their own levels of grip and downforce, they aren't fundamentally different from what I've been driving since I first stepped out of a kart and into an open-wheel car during my Skip Barber Three Day Racing School, at Sebring back in 1996. The basic skills I learned back then, about the friction circle and "the method" (the procedure for finding your optimal braking point for a corner) work in any car. My entire career has been about moving among different types of cars and getting them up to speed quickly. From that first Skip Barber National Championship in 1999 to Barber , Atlantics, Champ Car, A1GP and ultimately my trio of rides this year, being able to adapt quickly has served me well.

With the rapidly approaching Indy 500 and the new changes to the Izod IndyCar Series, it is a bright time in American open-wheel racing. Our on-track product is as good as any open-wheel racing in the world. Compared to the Grand Prix of Bahrain, the IndyCar race at São Paulo was a far more competitive and exciting event, with good close racing and plenty of passing. And it is only going to get better. With Izod on board as both my personal sponsor and the title sponsor for IndyCar, you are just seeing the tip of the iceberg in terms of activation and exposure. The fact that Izod purchased ad time during the Super Bowl to promote the season opener is an indication of how seriously they take their involvement in the series. Add to this the leadership of new CEO Randy Bernard, a new car (or new cars?) in 2012, and a bumper crop of young American drivers developing now in the various junior formulae of open-wheel racing, and the future is even brighter.

Looking ahead, one of my long-term goals is to get involved in helping to develop future stars of motorsports, the way the instructors, coaches and engineers helped me at every point in my career. But that's down the road. Right now, I'm not ready to quit my day job.